Nearly two years ago ABC Nightline anchor Ted Koppel gave
the commencement address at Duke University. For reasons
unknown, Koppel declined Readers Digest's request to print a
condensed version. MediaWatch has come across a
copy of this extraordinary and refreshing calling for a return of a
moral standards. Here are the highlights.

America has been Vannatized as in Vanna White -- Wheel of
Fortune's vestal virgin. Through the mysterious alchemy of
popular television Ms. White is roundly, indeed all but
universally adored. She turns blocks on which a letter is displayed. She
does this very well; very fluidly and with what appears to be
genuine enjoyment. She also does it mutely. Vanna says nothing.
She speaks only body language; and she seems to like everything
she sees. No, "like" is too tepid. Vanna thrills, rejoice,
adores everything she sees. And therein lies her magic.

We have no idea what or even if Vanna thinks. Is she a
feminist or every male chauvinist's dream? She is whatever you
want her to be. Sister, lover, daughter, friend. The viewer can
and apparently does project a thousand different personalities onto
the charming neutral television image and she accommodates them all.

Even Vanna White's autobiography, (an oxymoron if ever there
was one) reveals only that her greatest nightmare is running out
of cat food; and that one of the complexities of her job
entails making proper allowance for the greater weight of the letter
"M" or "W" over the letter "I," for example. Once, we
learn, during her earlier, less experienced days, she failed to
take that "heavy-letter-factor" into proper account and broke a
fingernail. I tremble to think what judgment a future
anthropologist, finding that book, will render on our society. I tremble
not out of fear that they will misjudge us; that they will
judge us only too accurately.

I am increasingly driven to the conclusion that, on
television, neutrality or objectivity are simply perceived, or
at least treated, as a form of intellectual vacuum, into which
the viewer's own opinion is drawn. I find myself being regarded
not as an objective journalist, but as someone who shares most views;
even those that are incompatible with one another. As in the case
of Vanna White (although mercifully to a lesser degree) many
viewers project onto me opinions they would like me to hold.

We have been hired, Vanna and I, to project neutrality. The
problem is that the "Vanna factor," has evolved more and more
into a political, an economic, even a religious necessity. On
television ambiguity is a virtue; and television these days in
our most active marketplace of ideas.

Let's take inventory for a moment. Sixty percent or more of
the American public, roughly 140 million people, get most or all
of their news from television. What then should we or must we
conclude? Whatever your merchandise, if you want to move it in bulk,
you flog it on TV. Merchants trying to sell their goods,
politicians trying to sell their ideas, preachers trying to sell
their gospel or their morality -- all of these items are most
efficiently sold on TV. If that doesn't scare the living
daylight out of you, then you're not paying attention.

Never mind the dry good. Television and toilet paper were made for one another.

But let's focus on our national policies; let's look at our
principles -- our ethical and moral standards. How do they fare
on television? We've learned, for example, that your attention
span is brief. We should know; we helped make it that way. Watch Miami Vice some Friday night. You will find that no scene lasts more than ten to fifteen seconds.

Look at MTV or Good Morning America and watch the images and
ideas flash past in a blur of impressionistic appetizers. No,
there is not much room on TV for complexity. You can partake of
our daily banquet without drawing on any intellectual resources;
without either physical or moral discipline. We require nothing
of you; only that you watch; or say that you were watching if
Mr. Nielsen's representative should call. And gradually, it must be
said, we are beginning to make our mark on the American psyche. We
have actually convinced ourselves that slogans will save us.
"Shoot up if you must; but use a clean needle." "Enjoy sex
whenever with whomever you wish; but wear a condom."

No. The answer is no. Not no because it isn't cool or smart
or because you might end up in jail or dying in an AIDS ward --
but no, because it's wrong. Because we have spent 5,000 years as
a race of rational human being trying to drag ourselves out of
the primeval slime by searching for truth and moral absolutes. In the
place of Truth we have discovered facts; for moral absolutes we
have substituted moral ambiguity. We now communicate with
everyone and say absolutely nothing. We have reconstructed the
Tower of Babel and it is a television antenna. A thousand voices
producing a daily parody of democracy; in which everyone's
opinion is afforded equal weight, regardless of substance or
merit. Indeed, it can even be argued that opinions of real
weight tend to sink with barely a trace of television's ocean
banalities.

Our society finds Truth too strong a medicine to digest
undiluted. In its purest form Truth is not a polite tap on the
shoulder; it is a hallowing reproach.

What Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai were not the Ten Suggestions, they are Commandments. Are, not were.

The sheer brilliance of the Ten Commandments is that they
codify, in a handful of words, acceptable human behavior. Not
just for then or now but for all time. Language evolves, power
shifts from nation to nation, messages are transmitted with the
speed of light, man erases one frontier after another; and yet
we and our behavior, and the Commandments which govern that behavior,
remain the same. The tension between those Commandments and our
baser instincts provide the grist for journalism's daily mill.
What a huge, gaping void there would be in our informational
flow and in our entertainment without routine violation of the
Sixth Commandment. Thou shalt not murder.

On what did the Hart campaign flounder? On accusations that
he violated the Seventh Commandment. Thou shalt not commit
adultery. Relevant? Of course the Commandments are relevant.
Simply because we use different term and tools, the Eighth Commandment
is still relevant to the insider trading scandal. Thou shalt not
steal. Watch the Iran/Contra hearings and keep the Ninth
Commandment in mind: Thou shalt not bear false witness. And the
Tenth Commandment, which seems to have been crafted for the 80's
and the Me Generation. The Commandment against covetous
desires; against longing for anything we cannot get in an honest
and legal fashion.

When you think about it, it's curious, isn't it. We've
changed in almost all things -- where we live, how we eat,
communicate, travel; and yet, in our moral and immoral behavior we
are fundamentally unchanged.

Jesus summed it up: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. So much for
our obligations towards our fellow man. That's what the last
five Commandments are all about.

The first five are more complex in that they deal with
figures of moral authority. The Fifth Commandment requires us to
honor our father and mother. Religious scholars through the
years have concluded that it was inscribed on the first tablet among
the laws and piety toward God because, as far as their children are
concerned, parents stand in the place of God. What a strange
conclusion! Us in the place of God. We, who set such flawed
examples for you. And yet, in our efforts to love you, to
provide for you, in our efforts to forgive you when you make
mistakes, we do our feeble best to personify that perfect image
of love and forgiveness and Providence which some of us find in
God.

Which brings me to the First and, in this day and age
probably the most controversial of the Commandments, since it
requires that we believe in the existence of a single and supreme
God. And then, in the Second, Third, and Fourth Commandments,
prohibits the worship of any other gods, forbids that his name
be taken in vain, requires that we set aside one day in seven to
rest and worship Him. What a bizarre journey; from a sweet,
undemanding Vanna White to that all-demanding jealous Old
Testament God.

There have always been imperfect role models; false gods of
material success and shallow fame; but now their influence is
magnified by television. I caution you, as one who performs
daily on that flickering altar, to set your sights beyond what you can
see. There is true majesty in the concept of an unseen power
which can neither be measured nor weighed. There is harmony and
inner peace to be found in following a moral compass that points
in the same direction, regardless of fashion or trend.

NewsBites: CBS Spikes Pro-Life

CBS Spikes Pro-Life. From March 20 to 25, pro-life Operation
Rescue demonstrators barred entrances to abortion clinics in
California. According to Newsweek, police arrested more than 700 protestors. On March 22, CNN PrimeNews covered the story. On March 23, NBC Today and Nightly News looked at the event. On March 24, ABC's Good Morning America and NBC Nightly News mentioned the protests. And on March 25, ABC, CNN, and NBC carried the news.

CBS This Morning and Evening News viewers never
heard about the demonstrations. CBS spiked the story. However,
not all protests were blacked out by CBS. On March 28, This Morning
news anchor Charles Osgood easily found the time to show three
lonely demonstrators opposing nuclear power at Three Mile Island.

Gorbachev's Useful Flacks. Early March marked the fourth anniversary of Gorbachev's rise to power. During the March 11 CBS Evening News,
Moscow correspondent Barry Petersen admired Gorbachev's
"courage to end Soviet involvement" in Afghanistan. "The Soviets
didn't win," Petersen declared, "but Gorbachev did."
Ironically, Petersen also found Gorbachev's Moscow "triumph"
over "cold warrior" Reagan noteworthy, forgetting it was
President Reagan's support for the Afghans that defeated the
Soviet Army.

ABC's Rick Inderfurth joined the lovefest during the next day's World News Sunday.
"On the international stage," Inderfurth declared, Gorbachev
"is a superstar, the toast of the West." Inderfurth considered
Gorbachev a "popular leader, despite those long [food] lines."
Inderfurth praised the upcoming "first contested elections since
Lenin's day," forgetting that in January 1918 Lenin used armed
sailors to stop the Constituent Assembly from falling into the
hands of non-Bolsheviks, Russia's only real experiment in
democracy.

NBC's Missed Gap In Glasnost. On March 11 CNN PrimeNews
interviewed Soviet dissident Konstantin Karmonov, once a
political prisoner and victim of abusive treatment in Soviet
mental hospitals. Asked about the current status of Soviet
psychiatry, Karmonov replied, "as for its essence, nothing has
changed." The next morning, The New York Times concurred, with a
front page headline, "U.S. Psychiatrists Fault Soviet Units."
The subhead read: "Team Finds Inmates Are Still Held for
Political Reasons."

NBC Nightly News anchor Connie Chung, however, told
viewers just the opposite: "U.S. officials in Moscow said today
they have been unable to determine, after meetings with patients
in Soviet mental hospitals, whether they are being held because
of their political beliefs."

Turner Turns On NBC. Turner Broadcasting Service head Ted
Turner has never been known to keep his personal opinions to
himself, a reputation demonstrated again recently. Speaking
before the Washington Metro Area Cable Club on March 8, the CNN
owner claimed General Electric, the parent company of NBC, is
run by "bozos" and "thieves" who have been "indicted and
admitted to stealing from the Pentagon," making GE the "most
corrupt corporation in America." According to Turner "these
crooks, these convicted felons, should be behind bars."

Maybe it's just coincidence, but in late April NBC is
launching the Consumers News and Business Channel, a new cable
competitor.

Lashing the Whip. When House Republicans elected Rep.
Newt Gingrich their Whip, some major newspapers and magazines
immediately cast doubt on his views and skills. The March 23 Washington Post reported "his ideas are often far from the mainstream of even Republican thought." According to Time, "Gingrich is a bomb thrower...more interested in right-wing grandstanding than in fostering bipartisanship." U.S. News and World Report said Gingrich "resembles a frisky chipmunk scurrying from idea to idea and storing too many bad ones."

But when Rep. Tony Coelho was elected Majority Whip in 1986, the reporters took a much different slant. The New York Times told readers "Mr. Coelho's politics are about mid-range on the Democratic spectrum," and the Los Angeles Times asserted "Coelho is not known as an ideologue" and "just what he stands for remains a mystery."

The truth is that Gingrich is no more conservative than
Coelho is liberal. Gingrich averages about an 80 rating from the
American Conservative Union while Coelho gets a similar
approval level from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action. In the
eyes of the print media, not all whips are created equal.

Spencer-itis. The National Association of Children's
Hospitals issued a study that provided reporters with an
opportunity to simultaneously attack past Reagan policies and
urge increased social spending. Naturally, CBS couldn't resist.

Dan Rather introduced Susan Spencer's story on the health
threat posed to poor kids by asserting, "children are already
suffering from cutbacks during the Reagan Administration."
Spencer blamed the children's health care "crisis" on "social
apathy, in particular on Reagan era budget cuts." Spencer
highlighted the report's call for "immediate expansion of
medicaid which now covers only half the children in poverty."

ABC was the only other network to cover the study. Peter
Jennings reported the study's concern for "child abuse,
accidental death, and chronic illness," but he refrained from
gratuitous Reagan-bashing.

Alar Alarm. On February 26 CBS' 60 Minutes gave
an exclusive report on a study produced by the Natural
Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a liberal environmental lobby,
charging the pesticide Alar makes apples unsafe to eat. The
segment by Ed Bradley so alarmed viewers it led to a nationwide apple
scare that took three government agencies weeks to calm down.

Viewers weren't told that months earlier CBS guaranteed the NRDC prominent 60 Minutes
coverage of their study well before the network had any idea of
its validity. In the report, Bradley called Alar "the most
cancer-causing agent in our food supply" and let Rep. Gerry
Sikorski (D-MN) talk grimly of children dying in cancer wards.

60 Minutes didn't mention opposing views, like a
report by the National Academy of Sciences which found no
evidence that any individual pesticide "makes a major
contribution to the risk of cancer in humans." Not only did 60 Minutes
give exclusive license to the claims of a liberal lobby, it
needlessly scared millions of parents and school officials with a
politically motivated and scientifically dubious report.

Ms. Streep Goes to Washington. Where should we turn
for expert advice about food? According to CBS News medical
correspondent Susan Spencer on the March 16 Evening News,
"amid scary reports of cancer-causing chemicals on apples,
cyanide-laced grapes from Chile and potential problems with just about
all fruit, Capitol Hill today turned to actress Meryl Streep, who
seemed to sum it all up." Streep's profound question: "Are we
not allowed to know what's on our food?"

Schlesinger was desperately seeking someone in the Bay State
not mad about the Duke's spending spree that has turned a $400
million surplus the year before into a $600 million deficit. He
reported, "the Governor's most vocal supporters are government
officials and employees, who worry that budget cuts will
eliminate vital services." Couldn't be they're worried about their
jobs, could it?

Ellerbee's Elucidations. The same week CNN anchor Mary Alice Williams left for NBC, Linda Ellerbee showed up. In her first PrimeNews commentary,
she told her audience a little something about herself: "Well,
am I a liberal, a conservative, or what? What."

Has Ellerbee come to any decisions in other areas? "I believe
in sunny summer mornings when the grass is sweet and the wind
is green with possibilities. I believe in chili with no beans
and iced tea all year round...that Beethoven would have liked
Chuck Berry." CNN may never be the same again, unfortunately.

One-Sided Susan. The CBS Evening News used its
March 5 "Inside Sunday" segment to investigate ethics. Susan
Spencer analyzed the new administration, but curiously omitted
using anyone who would defend President Bush or offer a
different point of view from the standard "sleaze factor"
theorists.

For her testimony, Spencer relied on sources like Fred
Wertheimer of Common Cause, who wondered if Bush would abandon
Reagan's "no-expectation ethics" and Ira Katznelson of the New
School for Social Research, who, Spencer reported, thought "all
this ethics talk is merely a diversion to avoid tough problems,
like drugs, homelessness, and poverty."

Failing the Fair Litmus Test. In its recent study of guests on ABC's Nightline,
the far-left media critics at Fairness & Accuracy In
Reporting (FAIR) complained that not enough liberals and
leftists are allowed on to offer alternative viewpoints. Among
those considered not "liberal" enough:

-- Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT), who "accepts much of the
[anti-communist] rhetoric and plays the role of insider
opponent, disagreeing on specific administration tactics without
challenging the underlying assumptions of the policy (i.e., that
the U.S. seeks to bring "democracy" to Nicaragua)."

-- Tom Wicker, The New York Times columnist, because he "is in no way connected to the movement opposing U.S. policy in Central America."

-- Michael Kinsley, Editor of The New Republic. FAIR
took exception to labeling the anti-Contra Kinsley a "journalist
of the left," saying his magazine was pro-Contra and "centrist"
at best.

Cabbage Patch Currier. "Cabbage patch commandos" is how CBS
News reporter Frank Currier disparagingly referred to those with
opinions differing from his on the ownership of semi-automatic
weapons. Currier used CBS airtime as a platform to preach for
gun control. At one point during his March 15 Evening News
report from a Texas shooting range, Currier hoped "this
controversy... could signal the beginning of the end of America's love
affair with guns."

Currier concluded by "wondering if America's romance with
firepower is really worth the price." Cooler heads prevailed at The Wall Street Journal. In a March 24 editorial, the Journal
explained that the dispute is "less a public-policy debate than
a cultural clash. The cosmopolitan culture doesn't know one
kind of weapon from another...the bedrock culture may not like
white wine and Brie, but is plenty smart enough to recognize
when it is under attack...it does know what it's talking about
here."

Dubious Source. In the heat of the Tower debate on the Senate floor, The Washington Post
transformed a single unsubstantiated allegation into a damaging front
page story. On March 2, Bob Woodward wrote of a visit Tower made
to Bergstrom Air Force base in the late '70's. Woodward
interviewed Air Force sergeant Bob Jackson, who accused Tower of
having "liquor on his breath" and "staggering out of the car
and up the steps." He also accused Tower of attempting to fondle
female personnel.

Woodward claimed to have other "informed sources," but didn't
identify any of them. The very next day, Senator John McCain
contacted several military personnel who contradicted Jackson's
story. Furthermore, Senator McCain discovered Sergeant Jackson
had been discharged in 1978 for "mixed personality disorder and
anti-social and hysterical features."

The CBS Evening News picked up Woodward's story the
night before, but didn't mention the next day how a U.S. Senator
had discredited their coverage. The next day, Woodward wrote an
article over the furor his story had created, but the damage to
Tower's reputation had already been done.

Troute Fishing. ABC's Dennis Troute expanded the March media frenzy over assault rifles to include handguns. For the March 14 World News Tonight Troute revived a five month old study from the New England Journal of Medicine.
Extolling the virtues of Canada's gun control laws, Troute
compared Seattle and Vancouver. To show the value of gun laws,
Troute noted there were 36 homicides with guns in 1988 in Seattle and
six in Vancouver.

According to the NRA, however, the murder rate among whites
was the same for both cities, and the percentage of gun-related
homicides in Vancouver remained the same before and after
implementing gun control. Troute missed both these points. Troute also
failed to note that there are 960 registered handguns per 100,000
people in Vancouver, while New York City has only 930. By
Troute's logic Vancouver should be a more dangerous place. Not
surprisingly, Troute concluded, "crime would be much more deadly
here if guns were as widely available as they are in the U.S."

No Home for Media Myths. In an NBC News special last
year, Tom Brokaw portrayed the homeless are "people you know."
That's just one of several media myths proven inaccurate by an
article in the March 20 issue of U.S News and World Report.
As Senior Editor David Whitman contended, "homeless men and
women are...sadly isolated from the mainstream of American
life."

Another popular media untruth is that there are three million
homeless. Whitman cited a study by the "nonpartisan" Urban
Institute that puts the number at 600,000. Harold Dow, in a
report for the February 16 edition of the CBS News show 48 Hours,
complained that "people have jobs but simply can't afford a
place to live." Whitman explained the more prevalent problem is
"about two thirds of homeless adults have at least one serious
personal problem that helps put them on the streets." Hopefully,
reporters will read Whitman's piece and bring a more rational,
fact-based perspective to their coverage of the problem.

Revolving Door: New to U.S. News

New to U.S. News. Mortimer Zuckerman, owner of U.S. News & World Report, has successfully lured Michael Barone away from The Washington Post where he's been an editorial writer since 1982. Barone, co-author of the Almanac of American Politics, became a Senior Editor in early April.

From 1974 to 1981 he served as Vice President of Peter Hart
Research Associates, a Democratic polling firm. Among the
clients handled by Barone: Ted Kennedy's 1980 presidential
effort.

From the Hart of Europe.Time's Robert Miller revealed
the liberal background of one staffer in his March 27 "From the
Publisher" column. Kenneth Banta, a Chicago and New York based Time
reporter starting in 1981 "took a leave of absence in 1984 to
work as an issues adviser for Gary Hart's first unsuccessful
presidential campaign."

The partisan political foray was no hindrance to his career. Banta is now Time's Vienna-based Eastern European Bureau Chief.

Wiring the Hill. The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call
reports two wire service veterans have switched from reading to
writing press releases. Wendy Benjaminson, a political editor
at UPI's national desk until she became a Capitol Hill reporter
in December, is now the Press Secretary to U.S. Representative
Barbara Kennelly, a Connecticut Democrat

Republican Lynn Martin of Illinois has hired David Fox, an
Associated Press reporter in Washington the past two years, to
be her Press Secretary. Fox held a variety of radio and TV
positions in the Midwest before joining AP ten years ago.

Hazzardous Duty. Katherine Gibney, an editor and reporter for the Atlanta Journal and Atlanta Constitution
since 1984 has joined the office of Congressman Ben Jones as
Press Secretary. The freshman Democrat from Georgia gained fame
by starring as "Cooter" in the Dukes of Hazzard TV series.

Nixonian Times.Los Angeles Times Publisher Tom
Johnson, formerly an Executive Assistant and Deputy Press
Secretary to President Johnson, has promoted another aide to a
former President. In February Johnson made Lawrence Higby
President of the Orange County edition of the Times.
Higby, once a Deputy Assistant to Nixon, had been a Vice President in
charge of marketing for Times Mirror Cable Television.

Reporters First, Americans Second

In a future war involving U.S. soldiers what would a TV
reporter do if he learned the enemy troops with which he was
traveling were about to launch a surprise attack on an American
unit? That's just the question Harvard University professor Charles
Ogletree Jr, as moderator of PBS' Ethics in America series, posed to ABC anchor Peter Jennings and 60 Minutes
correspondent Mike Wallace. Both agreed getting ambush footage
for the evening news would come before warning the U.S. troops.

For the March 7 installment on battlefield ethics Ogletree
set up a theoretical war between the North Kosanese and the
U.S.-supported South Kosanese. At first Jennings responded: "If I
was with a North Kosanese unit that came upon Americans, I
think I personally would do what I could to warn the Americans."

Wallace countered that other reporters, including himself,
"would regard it simply as another story that they are there to
cover." Jennings' position bewildered Wallace: "I'm a little bit
of a loss to understand why, because you are an American, you
would not have covered that story."

"Don't you have a higher duty as an American citizen to do
all you can to save the lives of soldiers rather than this
journalistic ethic of reporting fact?" Ogletree asked. Without
hesitating Wallace responded: "No, you don't have higher duty...
you're a reporter." This convinces Jennings, who concedes, "I
think he's right too, I chickened out."

Ogletree turns to Brent Scrowcroft, now the National Security
Adviser, who argues "you're Americans first, and you're
journalists second." Wallace is mystified by the concept,
wondering "what in the world is wrong with photographing this
attack by North Kosanese on American soldiers?" Retired General
William Westmoreland then points out that "it would be repugnant
to the American listening public to see on film an ambush of an
American platoon by our national enemy."

A few minutes later Ogletree notes the "venomous reaction"
from George Connell, a Marine Corps Colonel. "I feel utter
contempt. Two days later they're both walking off my hilltop,
they're two hundred yards away and they get ambushed. And
they're lying there wounded. And they're going to expect I'm
going to send Marines up there to get them. They're just
journalists, they're not Americans."

Wallace and Jennings agree, "it's a fair reaction." The
discussion concludes as Connell says: "But I'll do it. And
that's what makes me so contemptuous of them. And Marines will
die, going to get a couple of journalists."

Leftist Reporter Given PBS Show

What does one do with an aging, left-leaning reporter who's
battling civil suits for libel and copyright infringement? If
you are the Public Broadcasting System, you give him a weekly
half-hour public affairs show forum for his views.

Each week more than 70 PBS affiliates air The Kwitny Report, hosted by former Wall Street Journal
reporter Jonathan Kwitny. On a recent broadcast, Kwitny featured a
hostile profile of anti-communist guerrilla leader Jonas Savimbi,
calling him, "just one more blood-stained autocrat on the U.S.
taxpayers' payroll." Some footage was supplied by the Cuban U.N.
Mission.

In February, Kwitny was found liable in Southern District of
New York Federal Court of copyright infringement for his 1984
book, Endless Enemies. The book denounced American
"interventionism" in Central America and elsewhere in the world,
while comparing Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro favorably with Polish
Labor Leader Lech Walesa.

Despite the removal of Endless Enemies from the
shelves by nervous book store owners during litigation, Kwitny
hawked it at the end of a March broadcast last year as a premium
to subscribers to PBS' New York affiliate, WNYC-TV, which
produces The Kwitny Report. This resulted in a second
infringement suit against Kwitny. He is also fighting libel suit from a
1987 appearance on a local New York Cable program in which he
repeated the charges made in Endless Enemies. At present,
PBS doesn't seem bothered by either Kwitny's legal difficulties
or his enthusiasm for promoting left-wing views "considering
that none are ever seen on television anywhere," according to
Kwitny in WNYC's monthly program guide.

Hopeful vs. Hopeless

Hopeful vs. Hopeless. NBC apparently thought little
of democracy in El Salvador, but the network was quite impressed
by the recent elections in the Soviet Union. On March 19
Garrick Utley led off Nightly News: "The results are
coming in from election day in El Salvador. Not the vote, but
the dead." NBC reporter Ed Rabel told Utley "the polarization
has already begun." Later on the same broadcast, Utley grew more
upbeat: "Now we want to show you something truly extraordinary
that happened in the Soviet Union today." After the report,
Utley commented: "And who would have ever thought that it would
get this far in the Soviet Union?"

Third-Degree Burnes. On West 57th the night
before El Salvador's elections, CBS correspondent Karen Burnes
painted another pessimistic portrait of the nation's troubles.
Burnes began by showing "El Salvador's elite" laying by the side
of a swimming pool and attending a small rally for the ARENA
party. "Their mood is buoyant: they are confident they will triumph
in this presidential election." Burnes then reported the FMLN's
line, sympathetically saying that they have "no choice but to fight
to break out of a system that enriches a tiny minority while the
rest struggle for food and shelter." Her main source was
leftist Father Ignacio Martin-Baro, who predicted more U.S. aid
would only bring "more destruction, more death."

While Burnes concentrated on the FMLN and their insurgency in
the cities, she ignored their assassinations of mayors and
attempts already begun to disrupt the free and fair elections.
The left in El Salvador captured a whopping 4 percent of the
vote.

Charlie's Angles. The morning after ARENA's victory, Good Morning America
co-host Charles Gibson interviewed William Walker, the U.S.
Ambassador to El Salvador. Gibson focused on a single theme:
"Given the fact that...ARENA was actually running the vote in
some areas, is this a meaningful and valid election?" Gibson
proceeded to ask if "the United States [can] work with ARENA,"
"Is it a defeat for U.S. policy?" "Is this a democratic force,
is this a group that works for human rights?" "Who really runs
the ARENA party...Mr. Cristiani or...Roberto d'Aubuisson?"
Former New Left leader turned conservative David Horowitz
appeared bit later in the same show. He objected to Gibson's
line of inquiry: "Every question that you asked was designed to
delegitimize the ARENA Party, if it wins, and the election
process. I mean, that is the Left mentality which we wanted to
sow: doubt about the good will of America, about its place in
the world, and about its democratic allies."

Janet Cooke Award: Sunday Today: Salvador Slant

There is cause for both optimism and pessimism in El Salvador
today. The densely-populated Central American nation has
achieved a milestone: its second national presidential election
has put new life into the fledgling democracy. But while
democratic principles are being exercised, the now nine year-old civil
war rages on. Despite one million dollars a day in U.S. economic
and military aid, the government still cannot crush the FMLN
communist insurgency, funded and supported by the Soviet Union,
Nicaragua and Cuba.

Corruption and mismanagement by the Christian Democratic
centrist government and the 1986 earthquake set the economy and
democracy back, but the continuous economic sabotage and
terrorism by the communist rebels is the root cause of the misery, death
and instability.

It was not the decade long crimes of the communists that
concerned the networks when covering recent elections. Instead,
reporters concentrated almost exclusively on the atrocities of
the right. Garrick Utley's March 12 Sunday Today report was the most one-sided and earns the April Janet Cooke Award.

Political murderers by the Salvadoran army and right wing
paramilitary death squads are still occurring in El Salvador and
Utley certainly had a duty to note it. But his eight and one
half minute long report never mentioned the equally bloody murders
committed by the FMLN. The opening of his report showed just how
selective he planned to be: "The war is still going on there. The
right-wing death squads were controlled for a while, but now the
number of the victims is increasing again."

Reinforcing his theme, Utley conveyed the story of the death
of Miguel Lazo: "Our story is about a body which was dug up.
Miguel Lazo was his name, a teacher and a union official,
murdered it is believed by one of the death squads linked to the armed
forces... he knew that union officials are prime targets for the
right-wing death squads."

The number of political deaths has not risen drastically as
Utley claimed. In 1980, the number killed by right-wing and
left-wing death squads combined was 750 per month; in 1981, it
was 444. The number came down steadily throughout the decade and
averaged 22 in 1986, 23 in 1987, and 18 in 1988. Human rights groups
put the number at 21 per month so far this year. Despite the
improved situation, Utley still singled out government forces:
"This too was Miguel Lazo's world, a confrontation between union
members and their supporters, and the army in the capital San
Salvador itself. The armed forces see the unions as allies and
sympathizers of the Marxist-led guerrillas. The unions see the
armed forces as the force of repression. This soldier wanted to
open fire, but was ordered not to. The killing can always be
done at night, anonymously, as it happened to Miguel Lazo."

What about the left-wing murders? The U.S. Embassy estimated
that of the 185 killings of non-combatants in the first ten
months of 1988, 54 were clearly perpetrated by the FMLN; another
60 were probable FMLN murders. The left-leaning and FMLN-sympathetic
Salvadoran Catholic Church claimed most 1988 murders were
committed by the "security forces (92)," while another 60 were
committed by "death squads (not further defined)." It did,
however, attribute 44 killings to the FMLN.

While the numbers are conflicting, it is clear the communists
are killing and aiming at high profile figures to sabotage
local political structures and the democratic process. Among the
killings by the FMLN in 1988: eight mayors, one ex-mayor, and one
governor. Another 80 mayors received death threats from the
communists and were intimidated to resigning.

Utley noted "the increase in violence from the left as the
war moves into the city" and showed the rebels making Molotov
cocktails, but the 22-year news veteran deliberately left out
the FMLN's assassinations and their disruption of the recent
elections. Instead, he harped on ARENA founder Robert
D'Aubuisson's link to death squads, complaining that "many people
see" Arena presidential candidate Cristiani "as the front man
for the real power in the party."

MediaWatch asked Garrick Utley to discuss these points,
but he repeatedly declined, explaining: "I don't talk about the
work. My attitude is that the work has to speak for itself.
Every viewer or reader can have their interpretation of it. I
can't get into the details of this or that, or it just becomes
an open-ended, very subjective approach to it."

When told that MediaWatch wants to provide reporters
with the opportunity to defend their stories, Utley responded:
"I appreciate you calling, but I don't get into debates on this
sort of thing. The report is there. No report is made in
heaven." Probably true, at least Utley's report wasn't made there.
Unless it was in FMLN-heaven....if there is one.

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